Owen Roberts

(b. Germantown, Pa., 2 May 1875; d. West Vincent Township, Chester County, Pa., 17 May 1955; interred St. Andrews Cemetery, West Vincent Township); associate justice, 1930–1945. Educated at the University of Pennsylvania, where he received his law degree in 1898, Owen Roberts worked first as a private attorney and then as assistant district attorney in Philadelphia. He taught law part time at the University of Pennsylvania until 1919. In 1924 President Calvin Coolidge named Roberts a special U.S. attorney in the Teapot Dome Scandals. When Herbert Hoover's initial choice for a 1930 Supreme Court vacancy, John J. Parker of North Carolina, failed to get Senate confirmation (see Nominees, Rejection of), Hoover nominated Roberts, who took the seat in June.

Roberts joined a conservative Depression‐era Court identified with entrepreneurial liberty and skeptical of government regulation of business. On a Court deeply divided by new appointments (Charles Evans Hughes and Benjamin Cardozo), Roberts's vote was pivotal in the struggle between Franklin Roosevelt and the Court.

Roberts's opinions reviewed the constitutional challenges of the New Deal in a way that puzzled Court critics, who could find no consistent jurisprudential principle in his rulings. In Nebbia v. New York (1934), Roberts upheld state regulation of business—in this case a New York statute regulating milk prices (see State Regulation of Commerce). As conservative opposition to New Deal legislation intensified, the Court's attitude toward federal economic regulation hardened. Roberts joined the majority in Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan (1935) to invalidate section 9c of the National Industrial Recovery Act; his opinion in Retirement Board v. Alton Railroad Co. (1935) struck down the Railroad Retirement Pension Act; a unanimous Court held the entire National Industrial Recovery Act unconstitutional in Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States (1935); Louisville Bank v. Radford (1935) voided the Federal Farm Bankruptcy Act of 1934. One of Roberts's most far‐reaching opinions came in a 6‐to‐3 ruling that overturned the first Agricultural Adjustment Act (U.S. v. Butler, 1936). In Carter v. Carter Coal Co. (1936), Roberts joined the majority that invalidated the Bituminous Coal Act of 1935 as a federal intrusion upon matters reserved to the states.

The Court's persistent opposition to New Deal legislation led to the 1937 battle over Roosevelt's court‐packing plan. Partly as a response to the criticism directed at the Court, Roberts softened his attitude toward the New Deal. In 1937 Roberts joined the majority in West Coast Hotel v. Parrish in upholding a state minimum wage law (a conclusion Roberts reached before the Court reorganization was announced). The Court also sustained the Farm Mortgage Act of 1935, the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, and the Social Security Act of 1935. In each case Roberts voted with the majority to sustain New Deal legislation.

As the Court in the 1930s increasingly turned its attention to civil liberties, Roberts again walked an unpredictable path. He wrote the Court's unanimous opinions that upheld the constitutionality of the white primary (Grovey v. Townsend, 1935) and dissented in 1944 when that holding was overturned 8 to 1 in Smith v. Allwright. Roberts's 1940 opinion in Cantwell v. Connecticut reversed a Jehovah's Witness's conviction for soliciting contributions without a permit. He also voted with the majority to uphold a flag‐salute requirement in Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940). Three years later, the Court reversed itself in West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette, but Roberts adhered to Gobitis. In Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada (1938), the Court invalidated exclusion of African‐American students from the state's law school as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and Roberts voted with the majority. Finally, in Korematsu v. United States (1944), Roberts dissented powerfully in the constitutional test of the forced relocation of Japanese‐Americans during World War II. He insisted that the West Coast exclusion orders were a “case of convicting a citizen as punishment for not submitting to imprisonment in a concentration camp, … solely because of his ancestry” (p. 226).

While a sitting justice, Roberts chaired an inquiry into the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (see Extrajudicial Activities). The committee exonerated the Roosevelt administration and placed responsibility on the military commanders at Pearl Harbor. After his retirement from the Court in 1945, Roberts served as dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School (1948–1951) and chaired the Security Board of the Atomic Energy Commission. He died of a heart attack in 1955, shortly after his eightieth birthday.

Bibliography

• G. Edward White, The American Judicial Tradition: Profiles of Leading American Judges (1976).
• Elder Witt, Congressional Quarterly's Guide to the U.S. Supreme Court, 2d ed. (1990)

— Augustus M. Burns III

• Born: May 2, 1875, Germantown, Pa.
• Education: University of Pennsylvania, A.B., 1895, LL.B., 1898
• Previous government service: special deputy attorney general, Eastern District of Pennsylvania, 1918; special U.S. attorney, 1924–30
• Appointed by President Herbert Hoover May 9, 1930; replaced Justice Edward Terry Sanford, who died
• Supreme Court term: confirmed by the Senate May 20, 1930, by a voice vote; resigned July 31, 1945
• Died: May 17, 1955, West Vincent Township, Pa.

Owen J. Roberts served on the Supreme Court during an era of crisis and controversy, which included the Great Depression and World War II. He initially participated with the Court's majority in opposing President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal programs. Later, he switched his position to join the Court's majority in favor of New Deal programs and laws. His change in position seemed to reflect a great change in popular opinion signaled by President Roosevelt's landslide victory in the 1936 election.

Justice Roberts's most notable Supreme Court opinion came in dissent in Kore-matsu v. United States (1944). The Court upheld the compulsory movement of Japanese Americans during World War II to internment centers because they were viewed as a threat to national security following Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Roberts, however, disagreed and wrote:” [This] is the case of convicting a citizen as a punishment for not submitting to imprisonment in a concentration camp, based on his ancestry…without evidence or inquiry concerning his loyalty and good disposition towards the United States…I need hardly labor the conclusion that constitutional rights have been violated.” Justice Roberts's dissent in the Korematsu case is viewed by most Americans today as the correct opinion.

See also Korematsu v. United States

Owen Josephus Roberts served as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court for fifteen years. His years on the Court included the New Deal era when the federal government, under the leadership of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, expanded its regulation of the economy in an effort to address the effects of the Great Depression. Roberts cast the deciding vote in a major case that marked a shift in the Court's approach to such regulation.

Roberts was born on May 2, 1875, in Germantown, Pennsylvania, where he spent much of his childhood. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, receiving a bachelor of arts degree in 1895 and a bachelor of laws degree in 1898. In 1898 Roberts established a law practice in Philadelphia, becoming the first district attorney for Philadelphia County. Roberts also taught for twenty years at the University of Pennsylvania, serving as a law professor from 1898 to 1918. In 1924 President Calvin Coolidge named Roberts special attorney for the prosecution in the Teapot Dome scandal, which involved unethical behavior in the oil industry. In 1930 President Herbert Hoover appointed Roberts to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Roberts's tenure on the Supreme Court is largely remembered for the decisive fifth vote he cast in West Coast Hotel v. Parrish, 300 U.S. 379, 57 S. Ct. 578, 81 L. Ed. 703 (1937), which upheld the constitutionality of a Washington state minimum wage law. The Court's decision in West Coast Hotel brought an end to the Lochner Era in constitutional law, named after the case Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45, 25 S. Ct. 539, 49 L. Ed. 937 (1905). In Lochner the Court struck down a New York law regulating the number of hours that employees could work each week in the baking industry because it violated the free market principles embodied in the doctrine of substantive due process, a doctrine derived from the Due Process Clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

For three decades after Lochner, the Court invalidated numerous state and federal laws regulating businesses, including laws that prescribed certain terms and conditions of employment. After West Coast Hotel, the Court adopted a more permissive stance toward such laws, permitting both the state and federal governments to pass reasonable business regulations that benefit society. Roberts's vote to uphold the state minimum wage law in West Coast Hotel is memorable not only because it was the decisive vote in a landmark case but also because he had previously voted to strike down similar regulations on a number of occasions.

Roberts's change of heart has been characterized as "the switch in time that saved nine," suggesting that Roberts cast his vote to defeat President Roosevelt's court-packing plan. To dilute the voting power of the existing nine justices on the Supreme Court, who had been striking down much New Deal legislation, Roosevelt had proposed to expand the number of justices, a move that would enable him to add justices more favorable to his New Deal objectives. Historians disagree, however, over whether Roberts had knowledge of Roosevelt's plan at the time he cast his vote. Additionally, Roberts had previously voted in favor of state legislation that had been enacted to address the worst effects of the Great Depression, much like some of the New Deal legislation Congress had passed at the federal level. For example, in Home Building & Loan Association v. Blaisdell, 290 U.S. 398, 54 S. Ct. 231, 78 L. Ed. 413 (1934), Roberts joined four other justices in upholding a Minnesota law that placed a moratorium on the foreclosure of mortgages.

Roberts's constitutional jurisprudence is difficult to categorize and was somewhat unpredictable. In Grovey v. Townsend, 295 U.S. 45, 55 S. Ct. 622, 79 L. Ed. 1292 (1935), for example, Roberts wrote for a unanimous Court in upholding the constitutionality of white primaries, which denied African Americans the right to elect party delegates for the national convention. Three years later, in Missouri ex rel. Gaines v. Canada, 305 U.S. 337, 59 S. Ct. 232, 83 L. Ed. 208 (1938), Roberts concurred with a majority of justices who relied on the Equal Protection Clause to invalidate a state statute authorizing the University of Missouri to exclude blacks from its law school.

Although Roberts upheld white primaries in Grovey, he supported racial minorities in Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214, 65 S. Ct. 193, 89 L. Ed. 194 (1944). In Korematsu the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of an executive order authorizing the forcible detention of more than a hundred thousand Americans of Japanese descent during World War II. Roberts dissented, attacking the rationale underlying the executive order, which ostensibly had been promulgated for the purpose of protecting the United States from risks of sabotage. Roberts argued that forcible detention was really just a euphemism for imprisonment and that Japanese Americans were being punished solely on the grounds of their ancestry "without evidence or inquiry concerning [their] loyalty and good disposition towards the United States." In this light Roberts concluded that the record revealed a clear constitutional violation.

Roberts retired from the Supreme Court in 1945. He then returned to the University of Pennsylvania where he served as dean of the law school from 1948 to 1951. Three years later, on May 17, 1955, Roberts suffered a heart attack and died at his Pennsylvania farm in West Vincent Township.

For the Welsh educationalist, see Owen Roberts (educator).

Owen Josephus Roberts
Portrait by Alfred Jonniaux
Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court
In office June 2, 1930 – July 31, 1945
Nominated by	Herbert Hoover
Preceded by	Edward Terry Sanford
Succeeded by	Harold Hitz Burton
Born	May 2, 1875 Philadelphia, PA
Died	May 17, 1955 (aged 80) West Vincent, PA

Owen Josephus Roberts (May 2, 1875 – May 17, 1955) was an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court for fifteen years. He also led the fact-finding commission that investigated the attack on Pearl Harbor. At the time of World War II, he was the only Republican appointed Judge on the Supreme Court of the United States and one of only three to vote against Franklin D. Roosevelt's orders for Japanese American internment camps in Korematsu v. United States.

Contents 1 Early life and career 2 Supreme Court 3 Later life 4 References 5 Sources

Early life and career

Roberts was born in Philadelphia and attended Germantown Academy and the University of Pennsylvania, where he was elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Society^[1] and was the editor of the Daily Pennsylvanian. He completed his bachelors degree in 1895, and went on to graduate at the top of his class from University of Pennsylvania Law School in 1898.^[2]

He first gained notice as an assistant district attorney in Philadelphia. He was appointed by President Calvin Coolidge to investigate oil reserve scandals, known as Teapot Dome Scandals. This led to the prosecution and conviction of Albert B. Fall, the former Secretary of the Interior, for bribe-taking.

Supreme Court

Roberts was appointed to the Supreme Court by Herbert Hoover after Hoover's nomination of John J. Parker was defeated by the Senate.

On the Court, Roberts was a swing vote between those, led by Justices Louis Brandeis, Benjamin Cardozo, and Harlan Fiske Stone, as well as Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, who would allow a broader interpretation of the Commerce Clause to allow Congress to pass New Deal legislation that would provide for a more active federal role in the national economy, and the Four Horsemen (Justices James Clark McReynolds, Pierce Butler, George Sutherland, and Willis Van Devanter) who favored a narrower interpretation of the Commerce Clause and believed that the Fourteenth Amendment Due Process Clause protected a strong "liberty of contract."

Justice Roberts

In 1936's United States v. Butler, Roberts sided with the Four Horsemen and wrote an opinion striking down the Agricultural Adjustment Act as beyond Congress's Commerce powers.

Roberts switched his position on the constitutionality of the New Deal in late 1936, and the Supreme Court handed down West Coast Hotel v. Parrish in 1937, upholding the constitutionality of minimum wage laws. Subsequently, the Court would vote to uphold all New Deal programs. Since President Roosevelt's plan to appoint several new justices as part of his "Court-packing" plan of 1937 coincided with the Court's favorable decision in Parrish, many people called Roberts's vote in that case the "switch in time that saved nine," although Roberts's vote in Parrish occurred several months before announcement of the Court-packing plan. While Roberts is often accused of inconsistency in his jurisprudential stance towards the New Deal, legal scholars note that he had previously argued for a broad interpretation of government power in the 1934 case of Nebbia v. New York, and so his later vote in Parrish was not a complete reversal.

Roberts wrote the majority opinion in the landmark case of New Negro Alliance v. Sanitary Grocery Co., 303 U.S. 552 (1938), which safeguarded the right to boycott in the context of the struggle by African Americans against discriminatory hiring practices. He also wrote the majority opinion sustaining provisions of the second Agricultural Adjustment Act applied to the marketing of tobacco in Mulford v. Smith, 307 U.S. 38 (1939).

Roberts was appointed by Roosevelt to head the commission investigating the attack on Pearl Harbor; his report was published in 1942 and was highly critical of the United States Military. Perhaps influenced by his work on the Pearl Harbor commission, Roberts dissented from the Court's decision upholding internment of Japanese-Americans along the West Coast in 1944's Korematsu v. United States.

In his later years on the bench, Roberts was the only Justice on the Supreme Court not appointed (or in the case of Stone, who had become Chief Justice, promoted) by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roberts became frustrated with the willingness of the new justices to overturn precedent and with what he saw as their result-oriented liberalism as judges. Roberts dissented bitterly in the 1944 case of Smith v. Allwright, which in finding the white primary unconstitutional overruled an opinion Roberts himself had written nine years previously. It was in his dissent in that case that he coined the oft-quoted phrase that the frequent overruling of decisions "tends to bring adjudications of this tribunal into the same class as a restricted railroad ticket, good for this day and train only."

Roberts retired from the Court the following year, in 1945; Roberts's relations with his colleagues had become so strained that fellow Justice Hugo Black refused to sign the customary letter acknowledging Roberts's service on his retirement. Other justices refused to sign a modified letter that would have been acceptable to Black, and in the end, no letter was ever sent.

Shortly after leaving the Court, Roberts reportedly burned all of his legal and judicial papers. As a result, there is no significant collection of Roberts' manuscript papers, as there is for most other modern Justices. Roberts did prepare a short memorandum discussing his alleged change of stance around the time of the court-packing effort, which he left in the hands of Justice Felix Frankfurter.

Later life

While in retirement Roberts, along with Robert P. Bass, convened the Dublin Declaration, a plan to change the U.N. General Assembly into a world legislature with "limited but definite and adequate power for the prevention of war."^[3]

Roberts served as the Dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School from 1948 to 1951.

He died at his Chester County (Pennsylvania) farm after a four-month illness. He was survived by his wife, Elizabeth Caldwell Rogers, and daughter, Elizabeth Hamilton.

Germantown Academy named its debate society after Owen J. Roberts in his honor. In addition, a school district near Pottstown, Pennsylvania, the Owen J. Roberts School District, adopted his name.

References

1. ^ Supreme Court Justices Who Are Phi Beta Kappa Members, Phi Beta Kappa website, accessed Oct 4, 2009
2. ^ Portrait at the University of Pennsylvania
3. ^ S.Doc.107-3 AUTHORITY AND RULES OF SENATE COMMITTEES, 2001-2002

• "Owen Roberts Dies; Former Justice, 80". The New York Times: p. 1. May 18, 1955. http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/nytimes/85696619.html?did=85696619&FMT=ABS&FMTS=AI&date=May+18%2C+1955&author=Special+to+The+New+York+Times.&pub=New+York+Times++(1857-Current+file)&desc=Owen+Roberts+Dies%3B+Former+Justice%2C+80. 
• "The Roberts Commission and Pearl Harbor," in Kenneth Kitts, Presidential Commissions and National Security (Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006).
• Germantown Academy, Clubs and Organizations

Sources

• Owen Roberts at the Biographical Directory of Federal Judges, a public domain publication of the Federal Judicial Center.

Legal offices
Preceded by Edward Terry Sanford	Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States June 2, 1930 – July 31, 1945	Succeeded by Harold Hitz Burton

Supreme Court of the United States

The Hughes Court Chief Justice: Charles Evans Hughes (1930–1941) Jun 1930–1932: O.W. Holmes | W. Van Devanter | J.C. McReynolds | L.D. Brandeis | Geo. Sutherland | P. Butler | H.F. Stone | O.J. Roberts 1932–1937: W. Van Devanter | J.C. McReynolds | L.D. Brandeis | Geo. Sutherland | P. Butler | H.F. Stone | O.J. Roberts | B.N. Cardozo 1937–1938: J.C. McReynolds | L.D. Brandeis | Geo. Sutherland | P. Butler | H.F. Stone | O.J. Roberts | B.N. Cardozo | H. Black 1938: J.C. McReynolds | L.D. Brandeis | P. Butler | H.F. Stone | O.J. Roberts | B.N. Cardozo | H. Black | S.F. Reed 1939: J.C. McReynolds | P. Butler | H.F. Stone | O.J. Roberts | H. Black | S.F. Reed | F. Frankfurter | Wm. O. Douglas 1940–1941: J.C. McReynolds | H.F. Stone | O.J. Roberts | H. Black | S.F. Reed | F. Frankfurter | Wm. O. Douglas | F. Murphy Feb-Jul 1941: H.F. Stone | O.J. Roberts | H. Black | S.F. Reed | F. Frankfurter | Wm. O. Douglas | F. Murphy | (vacancy) The Stone Court Chief Justice: Harlan Fiske Stone (1941–1946) 1941–1942: O.J. Roberts | H. Black | S.F. Reed | F. Frankfurter | Wm. O. Douglas | F. Murphy | J.F. Byrnes | R.H. Jackson 1943–1945: O.J. Roberts | H. Black | S.F. Reed | F. Frankfurter | Wm. O. Douglas | F. Murphy | R.H. Jackson | W.B. Rutledge

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